Using audience filtering to avoid paying for out-of-target installs

Not all ad engagements are created equal. If you are paying $5 cost-per-install for an iOS user in New York City, you probably don’t want to find that you have actually been getting Android users in Indonesia, right?

Efforts to protect your ad spend shouldn’t stop at fraud prevention. Out of target engagement can consume ad spend, reduce ROAS, skew performance data and damage your brand. Safeguarding your campaigns to make sure you are getting what you pay for is just as important as blocking fraud.

What are target audience verification filters?

Granular level geography: This includes macro filtering by region or country and more granular filtering, for example to show metro regions only. If your campaigns are only targeting specific cities, then you shouldn’t pay for installs from users outside of those.

Operating system version: Some apps are only developed to function on particular operating system versions. Any users trying to install the app on older operating systems or devices, may not be able to use the app.

Click to install time – Excessively short click to install times may indicate fraudsters are attempting to claim attribution through tactics such as click injection. With audience verification, you can set the minimum allowed time between click and install; any installs that occur within your specified timeframe will be marked as invalid.

Click to install rate – Setting the minimum percentage of clicks to installs helps prevent click spam and undisclosed incentivised traffic. Traffic from sources that fail to meet the target limits will be blocked by TrafficGuard.

Duplicate click limit – This restricts the number of times the same person can click through on one of your ads. Users who pass the limit will be blocked.

Any installs that don’t fit with your campaign targets are filtered out, so you only pay for actual targeted audience engagement.

What are the benefits of validating your target audience?

There are a number of reasons why you may want to use target audience verification filters.

Better ROAS by verifying the traffic is from your intended audience.

The correct experience is delivered to the audience – users get the localised campaigns and promotions intended for them.

Campaigns and user experience can be optimised based on clean data featuring engagement just from the intended audience.